Chapter 127

Chapter 127: Orphanage

That night, Yu Sheng slept heavy and groggy.

Maybe he had burned too much energy lately. He fell asleep fast, but then his head filled with messy dreams. Sometimes he dreamed of that museum. Sometimes of his hometown. Sometimes of the Black Forest. He thought he woke up several times and even heard Irene talking in her sleep, but those “wake ups” might have been more dreams.

This restless sleep lasted until the second half of the night. Then his mind suddenly loosened. All the mixed up, blurry dreams seemed to calm. In a smooth, gentle light dream, he slept peacefully until late morning.

He opened his eyes and saw two Irenes, one on each side, lying on his arms. Both arms had gone numb.

Yu Sheng lay there a while, then tugged his arms free. Pins and needles shot through them, making him bare his teeth.

Irene woke with a yawn, sat up with messy hair, and rubbed her eyes: “Good morning… yawn. Why did you sleep so restlessly last night?”

Yu Sheng was about to grumble while shaking his arms, then froze as it clicked: “You helped me in the second half of the night?”

Both Irenes got up, muttering in unison while straightening each other’s clothes and hair: “Your dream was too noisy. It was annoying, so I slipped in and calmed it down.”

Yu Sheng let his arms droop, face a little awkward. After a moment he coughed twice: “Ahem. Thanks.”

Irene shrugged: “It wasn’t a big deal, now come help me comb my hair.”

Yu Sheng said while shaking his numb arms: “You pinned me all night. My arms are still dead. Do it yourself. I bought you two small combs. They’re on the nightstand. Since you have two bodies now, it’s easy to comb each other.”

“Oh.”

The two dolls climbed to the nightstand, found the combs, and took turns combing the “other one’s” hair while grumbling: “Human bodies are so inconvenient. Press one part and it goes numb, bump another and it hurts. We dolls are much easier. Even when we shatter all over the floor, we don’t make a sound.”

Yu Sheng listened to Irene’s rambling without paying attention to the words. Sunlight poured through the window. Two identical gothic dolls sat in the light, combing each other’s hair and tidying their dresses. [If only they would stop talking, the scene would be beautiful.]

Watching them, he drifted off. [If just two dolls in the sunlight already look this nice, what if I really made a whole room of Irenes one day… how noisy would that get?] His lovely daydream broke apart into images of Irenes crawling all over, scuttling in the shadows, leaping and shrieking. He shook his head. [Too bad this doll has a mouth. Now there are two.]

After washing up, feeling returned to his arms. He made a simple breakfast, which wasn’t very early by then. He fed Foxy, who had been wandering around the house looking for food, and got ready to head out with the address Little Red Riding Hood had given him.

At the door he paused: “Should I bring a gift?”

Irene, already practiced at climbing into Foxy’s arms to “disguise” herself, looked up: “Probably. First time visiting someone’s home. Cookies or candy? I think there are lots of kids over there.”

“Is that too cliché?”

“You can’t hand out a tube of blood to everyone. That would not be cliché. They’d call the police.”

Yu Sheng thought about it and agreed.

He set out with Foxy and Irene (P2). Before hailing a taxi, he stopped by the corner market and bought a big bag of candy and snacks. Then he flagged a cab by the road and gave the driver the address Little Red Riding Hood had sent.

By the way, Irene (P1) stayed home to watch TV. She was getting very used to living with two bodies.

Boundary City was large. Luckily, the address wasn’t very far. After about half an hour, Yu Sheng’s group arrived near the place.

The moment he got out, he noticed there were very few people around.

The closer he walked toward the address Little Red Riding Hood had marked, the fewer pedestrians he saw.

He had been dropped at an intersection on a main road. In her message, Little Red Riding Hood had marked a short walking route after getting out. Yu Sheng left the main road and followed a slightly worn side lane called Clear Tranquility into an old neighborhood behind the commercial district. It looked a little newer than the area around 66 Wutong Road, but not by much. After roughly ten minutes, he realized there wasn’t a single other person in sight.

At the end, the lane opened onto a large compound.

It was a big yard made of two row buildings and several small structures. The gray white buildings had some age. A high wall surrounded the whole place. There had once been bright murals on the wall, but most had flaked off, leaving only faded paint.

A reinforced metal gate stood in front of Yu Sheng. What caught his eye even more were the familiar Metal Obelisk Devices lined up along the wall on both sides of the gate.

They were Nodes set by the Special Affairs Bureau.

Now he knew why foot traffic had dropped to nothing on the way here.

The whole base of Fairy Tale had been sealed with Otherworld style cognitive isolation.

A flash of red appeared. Little Red Riding Hood stepped out from the guard booth inside the gate. She opened a small side door and walked quickly toward him.

“You arrived earlier than I expected.”

She stopped in front of Yu Sheng, wearing a slightly complicated smile, both welcoming and a bit nervous.

It was the first time he had seen this composed high school girl look unsure.

Yu Sheng smiled and nodded: “We left early so we wouldn’t be late.” He glanced past her shoulder toward the compound gate.

On the wall next to the gate, several metal letters that had once been fixed there had fallen off or broken. The marks that remained were enough to make out the words “XX Orphanage.” Other than that, there was no sign.

An orphanage, hidden deep in the city, sealed behind Nodes.

Yu Sheng wasn’t surprised. Before he came, he had already guessed as much.

“Come with me. I’ve already told my family,” Little Red Riding Hood said as she turned to invite him in. “I don’t have class today, and I don’t have other jobs, so I can show you around.”

Yu Sheng and Foxy followed her into the old but not shabby yard.

As they passed the guard booth, Yu Sheng noticed a girl dozing inside, about the same age as Little Red Riding Hood.

“That’s Cinderella,” Little Red Riding Hood said casually. “She always looks half asleep in the daytime, but she’s actually very alert. On weekdays there are regular security guards here, sent by the council. On weekends, the ‘parents’ take turns on duty. ‘Parents’ just means older kids, like me.”

“People sent by the council?” Yu Sheng sounded surprised.

“Fairy Tale is an independent organization,” Little Red Riding Hood explained slowly. “But a group of orphans who haven’t grown up, taking care of even younger children, will run into many practical problems. Also, if you want to find kids affected by the ‘curse’ early and gather them in a safe facility, a government organization like the council has to step in. So we built a partnership.

“In name, this orphanage is run by the Borderland Council. They provide the site and part of the funding, and they send employees on a regular schedule to help with legal identity, school enrollment, medical visits, and other real life problems. In reality, the inside is self governed by Fairy Tale. We accept the children who are sent here and use our methods to reduce their risk of losing control. Or even if they do lose control, we keep it within these walls.”

She paused and summed up: “In short, the ordinary stays with the ordinary, and the extraordinary stays with the extraordinary.”

Yu Sheng listened quietly as they crossed the open yard. After a moment of thought, he shook his head slightly: “Not quite what I imagined.”

Little Red Riding Hood said calmly: “Only after you see it up close do you find that every strange setup has a reason to exist. For us, this is the most comfortable way. We can live at our own pace, and a lot of things are under control. For the Borderland administrators, ‘under control’ is exactly what they want.”

Yu Sheng said, thinking it through: “I mean… I thought the Special Affairs Bureau would handle all this. I thought they would be your management group, since they’re the pros in the Domain.”

Little Red Riding Hood’s steps slowed: “The Special Affairs Bureau does deal with us often. You’re right, they’re experts in handling extraordinary incidents. But most of the time, we can take care of the incidents inside this facility ourselves. We don’t need extra help. So our relationship is mostly business. For the ‘life’ parts of the orphanage, we’re actually closer to the ‘ordinary’ people sent by the council.”

Yu Sheng nodded: “I see.”

“Yes,” Little Red Riding Hood said. “After all, inside this big yard, it isn’t only ‘parents’ like me. There are many more children who simply have nightmares.”